Gen X may know Daisy Fuentes greatest for her breakthrough TV spot as MTV’s first Latina VJ again in 1993, concurrently internet hosting each MTV in English and MTV Internacional in Spanish. However earlier than she was a lauded tv star turned speak present host, Fuentes was a globetrotting little lady whose household moved from Cuba (the place her dad was from) to Spain (the place her mother was from) with a purpose to escape the Castro regime. They in the end settled in New Jersey the place she began her younger profession by getting into the world of modeling, which parlayed right into a gig because the climate particular person for Spanish-language station Telemundo—which is exactly when MTV took discover of this quickly rising star.
Thirty years and 135 IMDB credit later, Fuentes, now 56 and chiller than ever, has a brand new calling. Alongside along with her husband, pop-rock mogul and Grammy-winner Richard Marx (“Infinite Summer season Nights” may come to thoughts), Fuentes has embraced veganism with the identical fierce dedication and drive that, earlier this 12 months, led Individuals en Espanol to call her one of many “25 Most Highly effective Girls.”
For Fuentes, the dedication to mirror her worldview by the use of her food plan just isn’t solely a nod to animal and environmental safety, but in addition to her bigger-picture view of what it means to be persistently compassionate. Fuentes is, at her core, an activist, utilizing her large platform to talk for the marginalized—whether or not it’s her fellow immigrants, her BIPOC sisters and brothers who’ve been pushed to the margins for much too lengthy, or the billions of farmed animals exploited for a grossly unsustainable and unjust meals system.
VegNews’ Jasmin Singer sat down with Daisy Fuentes to debate her journey to veganism, her rabble-rousing methods, and the place, precisely, tequila suits in (spoiler alert: tequila all the time suits in).
Daisy Fuentes/Instagram
VegNews: We love that you just and your husband Richard Marx went vegan collectively. Inform us a bit extra about what the last word impetus was for you two to go vegan.
Daisy Fuentes: Richard had been a vegetarian since he was in his twenties, and was pescatarian once I met him. So it was a bit simpler for him to make the swap. By means of social media, I turned extra conscious of what was actually happening [for animals]. We lastly determined to observe just a few documentaries—and as tough because it was, then we watched just a few extra. I spotted I’d by no means made a connection or actually considered my meals and what it actually was. We additionally realized about meals as drugs. It was all too apparent. We had all this new data, and we couldn’t keep the identical. I imagine with information comes duty; we determined we needed to make a change and evolve. Like most vegans, I solely want I’d executed it a lot sooner.
Daisy Fuentes/Instagram
VN: And there’s one other approach you’re channeling your compassion: vogue! How has your veganism impacted your vogue strains?
DF: My vogue sense has additionally advanced. I now not care about carrying the “it” designer of the second or getting that must-have bag each lady desires. I’m extra conscious of what I’m shopping for and what I put my title on. My model doesn’t take a look at on animals or use leather-based or suede. I additionally don’t assume we must always have to decide on between paying our mortgage or getting that designer bag. I don’t wish to be a slave to vogue, however I nonetheless wish to look trendy and know the developments, so I can translate them to be extra inclusive, wearable, and inexpensive.
Richard Marx/Instagram
VN: You’ve been within the leisure business for over three many years, however you’ve stated that you just solely lately began to actually settle into a piece/life stability. What shifted?
DF: I acquired married. I’ve been busy working for many years, however discovered actual love and married later in life. I now wish to take pleasure in this a part of life extra. I hate that even when I dwell to be 90, I received’t get to spend sufficient time with the love of my life—whom I solely met in my forties! I’ve acquired clear priorities now. I don’t must, or wish to, do every little thing; I wish to take pleasure in life. I wish to find out about myself, my husband, and the universe. I wish to spend extra time with household and fewer time doing issues I don’t completely love.
Richard Marx/YouTube
VN: Talking of you and your husband, you began a podcast collectively—Tequila Discuss—that began in the course of the beginnings of the pandemic and ran the next two years. How did the concept come up, and what was that like?
DF: It began as one thing we did just a few instances on Instagram Stay, whereas we have been having a drink. We love to speak and we love tequila. Some folks thought we must always make it an everyday factor. We talked about every little thing you’d speak about when having a drink with a good friend … present affairs, popular culture, tales within the information. We vented, we acquired philosophical, mentioned the world—I cherished it.
Daisy Fuentes/Instagram
VN: Extra importantly, what’s your favourite strategy to drink tequila?
DF: I’m a purist. Añejo tequila on the rocks with a lime wedge.
Daisy Fuentes/Instagram
VN: Tequila apart, how are you training self-care today?
DF: I’ve embraced residing in a less complicated approach. So many luxuries and acquisitions have change into so foolish and pointless. I meditate and spend quite a lot of time in nature. I dwell on the seaside and that’s been my remedy. I’m grateful day-after-day that I get to roll away from bed and onto the sand with my husband and our candy canine. We hike a number of the most lovely trails on the earth proper in our yard—the Santa Monica mountains. However most of all, I’ve realized that I really like being residence, cooking, studying, and studying. When the world offers me lemons, I get some tequila and make the most effective of it.
Daisy Fuentes/Instagram
VN: And what’s been the most important factor you’ve realized about your self lately?
DF: That I like being genuine. I like residing my reality, talking my reality, and never worrying about what folks consider me. I used to be busy simply working and doing what folks do whereas life was passing me by. I want I lived in keeping with my values sooner. I ought to’ve discovered my voice once I was youthful. I wish to encourage younger folks to search out their voice, their causes. To maintain an open thoughts, and to vary it as usually they should. To query every little thing, and arise for what’s proper.
VN: What offers you hope?
DF: Youthful generations. They know and perceive a lot greater than many adults who’re close-minded and caught of their methods. Individuals who arise for others and in opposition to injustice give me hope. Even when it’s all dangerous information and individuals are at their worst, there are all the time some good folks serving to and making a distinction. They provide me hope.
